# Maeslantkering et Keringhuis: The storm door

- URL : https://www.inexpeditions.com/en/in100/la-porte-contre-la-tempete
- Language : English
- Publisher : in:Expeditions SAS, 8 rue Lacépède, 75005 Paris, bonjour@inexpeditions.com
- Place : Maeslantkering et Keringhuis, Hoek van Holland, Hollande-Méridionale, NL (https://www.keringhuis.nl/)

> At the mouth of the port of Rotterdam, two 210-metre steel arms wait for the storm in their docks on the Nieuwe Waterweg. When the water threatens to reach…

The storm door

## Maeslantkering et Keringhuis

keringhuis.nl

At the mouth of the port of Rotterdam, two 210-metre steel arms wait for the storm in their docks on the Nieuwe Waterweg. When the water threatens to reach three metres in Rotterdam, a computer decides on its own to swing them shut across the river. The Keringhuis, at the foot of the barrier, takes groups there.

In the mid-1980s, new sea-level forecasts showed that the dikes along the Nieuwe Waterweg would be too low. Raising them would have meant thirty years of expropriations in town, so the country chose a movable gate, built from 1991 to 1997 for about €450 million. Its ball joints, 10-metre spheres cast by Škoda in Pilsen, are the largest in the world. It has closed against a real storm in November 2007 and December 2023; every September a test closure shuts it again.

The group tour lasts 90 minutes: a film about the construction, the exhibition, then the barrier grounds, open only with a guide. It costs €140 for up to 30 people per guide, in English, French or German; meeting rooms seat 18 to 100, and lunch can be booked all year. Metro line B from Rotterdam to Hoek van Holland Haven takes half an hour, then 4 km on foot or by bike along the water. A team sees how a vital decision is handed to rules written in advance, and why a crew stays on watch, ready to take over by hand.

Photo credits : Joop van Houdt (Rijkswaterstaat) (Wikimedia Commons, Attribution) ; kees torn (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0) ; Mark Voorendt (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) ; Adriaan van Oost (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0)

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Source : https://www.inexpeditions.com/en/in100/la-porte-contre-la-tempete · in:Expeditions, learning expeditions and impact retreats since 2015.